The Puffer Forum

Hello everyone!

My name is Morgan, I do chemical oceanography for a living so I love all things water related! I purchased an adorable Green Spotted Puffer, about two months ago. Sadly I will say I purchased this fish from the dreaded Walmart, and was ill informed about this fish. Since purchasing I have done lots of research and have been gradually making necessary changes to ensure ultimate fish happiness! He is in a 30 gallon tank, has hiding places, and is at a steady temp of 76 degrees F, with an appropriate pH. My problem is that I have been feeding him flakes, as instructed by Walmart, and read he needs a better diet of frozen krill, bloodworms, snails and the like until he gets bigger. I have been having trouble getting him to eat the frozen krill, and the snails. I feel that since he is used to eating flakes, he may not know to eat this other food, and now his belly isn't quite as round (it is still white). Any tips on reaching my GSP to eat different foods?

Sorry for such a long post, I'm new and wanted to give as much info as possible!

Thanks

He actually eats flakes???
Try live worms.
Not sure if you've seen these articles:
library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/ht ... ur-puffer/

He does eat the flakes, but that's all he was fed at Walmart, so that might have something to do with it. I have not seen those articles, but I definitely learned a few things from looking at them, so thank you for sharing!!

Today when I got home from work and fed him, he did pick at the frozen krill finally. The snails might be dead at this point, and maybe that is why he is not eating them. I'll try to pick him up some live things to try in addition to his frozen food.

Welcome and thanks for doing your homework! You can also try live snails... most puffs can’t resist them!

I unfortunately had to go an hour a way to go to a real aquarium pet store to get the snails, so I think they may have died on the way home. I did recently find a local pet store that specializes in fish, so I will see what they have! I'm sure if the little snails were moving the my puffer (Dwight) wouldn't be able to control his curiosity haha

It may also be beneficial to you to consider purchasing snails online. Make your life easier and they usually do perfectly fine.

I have a baby GSP as well. Even though I live in a big city, I'm having trouble sourcing live snails other than mystery snails, which I've managed to kill repeatedly. At first I tried feeding him (thawed) frozen bloodworms or brine shrimp, but he wasn't interested. However, he does eat bottom feeder shrimp pellets. I give him two of those every second day. He's smart enough to have figured out that if he waits a couple of minutes the pellets will be softer, but he still crunches them, which gives his teeth a bit of a workout. Plus it's fun watching him swim around with what looks like a big cigar sticking out of his mouth.

I feed my GSP the usual seafood mix (squid,scallop,shrimp,lobster, crab, scallop etc) along with a quarter sized flake of dried seaweed; all soaked in Selcon and Kent Zoe vitamin supplement. Through trial and error, I’ve found that seaweed really helps to avoid constipation but he absolutely refuses to eat it without Selcon! Moreover, Selcon is the only way I can get him to eat medicated food. Cheers!